Part 5: Home on the Range
by FerretKid
Summary: What if… What if his time in Tibet hadn't helped Methos sort out his head? What if… Missed communication, mistaken motivation, mistaken ideas. What if…
1. Give Me A Home

**Canon note:** Takes place around the time of "Haunted" and "Little Tin God." This is after "One Minute to Midnight" and before "The Messenger."

**Author note:** I do not, never have, and likely never will own even a smidgen of the rights to Highlander. That belongs Davis-Panzer. As such, I'm not making money off this. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, yours as well. Amy Allan, her 5 brothers, and Mr. Klein are mine. Methos, Joe, and Mac most certainly and regrettably, are not.

* * *

**Home on the Range**

* * *

A travel-worn young man hiked along the mountain road - if one were willing to call a thin ribbon of asphalt desperately clinging to loose rocks and shale a road. He sauntered along without purpose, choosing his path by whim, he assumed. To any passers-by on the road - if there had been any - he would have appeared to be another homeless hitchhiker likely making his way to warmer climes of southern California. His belongings were stuffed entirely into a large duffle bag and his boots were nearly worn out. He needed a haircut, a shave, and most definitely a shower.

A break in the trees caught his attention, and the drifter stopped. With a frown he turned to continue on his path down the mountain, but didn't go three steps before he stopped and looked at the break again. One step back and he glared up an ill-kept, uneven dirt road which tried to hide in the trees which lined it. He took a step away, but with a muttered curse, started stomping up the mountain. It may be mid-afternoon, but night and chill come early in the mountains and while he was no stranger to discomfort, dealing with exposure was an irritation he didn't care to go through. Again. This month.


	2. Where the Buffalo Roam

Amy drew her horse up sharply as echoes rebounded off the rocks. The animals stilled, even the breeze seemed to have paused, allowing her to listen closely. No other shot came. Only Phillip had ridden out with her and he should have been four miles away at least. The shot seemed to have come from much closer.

Amy searched the awareness that ran through her subconscious like a river and found her brothers well and calm as expected. A whisper moved through, much like the gentle ripples of a fish swimming by…something…no, someone, she'd only brushed against like this a few times. Someone she never expected would find his way to her doorstep. She yanked the reins more sharply than she meant to, and with apologetic pats for the initial over-reaction, encouraged him to run for the front gate. Two short years ago she hadn't been able to feel the presence of people outside of her family. She liked this new, useful trick and had to admit she hoped it would stay around.

* * *

The thudding hooves drew Aaron Klein's attention, but his eyes would not leave the stranger's face. Once he had fired the warning shot, the pale young man had frozen in fear, hands in the air, but Aaron wasn't going to trust him any more than he would trust a mountain lion. Klein acknowledged Amy's arrival with a slight tip of his head.

Glaring at the intruder over the bar gate, he held the rifle steady and called to Amy after she stopped her horse. "This gentleman claims to have friends livin' on my mountain, Miss. I told him he's mistaken, but he ain't leaving."

Amy dropped to the ground, stepped to Mr. Klein's side, and gently touched his arm. "He's not mistaken, Mr. Klein, he just has a terrible habit of showing up places without calling ahead. Isn't that right, Adam?" She smiled at the Immortal.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. It is rude of me." Methos lowered his head in contrition, blinking through shaggy bangs. He saw Amy pinch her lips together to stop a giggle from escaping.

Mr. Klein slowly lowered the rifle, maintaining his glare at Methos, who's hands remained in the air. "You'll be alright then, Miss? I'll go back to my work."

"Yessir. We all appreciate your vigilance more than you know. You're comin' to dinner tonight, right?"

Mr. Klein sheathed his rifle and swung onto his horse more quickly than most seventy year olds could. "Yes, ma'am." With a final glare at Methos, he turned his horse to the trail and went on his way.

As the old man disappeared through the trees with a final glare over his shoulder, Methos dropped his hands and leaned on the gate while Amy undid the padlock and chains. "Your foreman greets visitors with a gun, even shoots first. He's the perfect employee for you."

"Yep. And you won't be able to bribe him with flowers the way you did Madame Martin! If I'd known you were coming, you could have avoided that."

"I didn't have access to a phone," Methos shrugged. In truth, he had decided to leave Tibet because, after months of meditation, he had not been able to recenter himself as he usually could. Unsettled and realizing more meditation was not going to help, he left with the vague idea of hitchhiking across North America before returning to Paris. What had surprised him was finding himself walking up a mountain in Idaho.

At one point since landing in California, Methos had remembered he knew Amy had a home in the States, but he also had no idea where that was. And, even if he'd know that, he had no way to know if she would be there. Methos had no idea what he was doing, but subconsciously his feet had chosen a path and he stayed on it, waiting to see what would happen.

Amy unlocked and opened the gate, inviting Methos through with a jerk of her head and then relocked it behind him. She remounted her horse. "The road will be easy enough, just follow it up to the house. At least one of the guys should be inside and can show you around. I have to check a section of fence, and I'll be right behind you."

Before Methos could protest, she had turned the horse and was galloping back the way she had come. With a sigh Methos shouldered his duffle bag and strode up the road, such as it was, as Amy had instructed. He had not had the smoothest of introductions to three of her "brothers" before. How could he expect anything to go more smoothly with two more involved - assuming all five Elven men were at home? He decided to wait a distance from the house. Or at least not enter until Amy arrived.


	3. And The Deer and the Antelope Play

With dinner over and clean-up finished, Mr. Klein returned to his home, the guys - minus Peter who was in surgery - scattered to work on their various projects, and Amy wandered through the first floor until she found Methos.

Standing inside the French door leading from library to back deck, undecided what she should do, Amy watched silently as Methos stared out at the mountains, ramrod straight, knuckles pale as he gripped the railing. When they had last parted ways, Adam was in the midst of an identity crisis and she was struggling against a desire for revenge on a level she had never experienced before. Before that they had, or at least seemed to have, just gotten past the hurt of Alexa's death and hasty words tearing them apart, but then the world had heaved and they were carried apart yet again.

She put her fingers on the handle and hesitated once more.

"Are you afraid of him?"

With a jump, she jerked her hand away. "Don't do that!"

Paul laughed and walked across the library to drop his arm over his sister's shoulders. "Aren't you supposed to be better than to get startled like that?" Amy answered by growling low in her throat and punching his arm. "So. Now what?"

"Be friends." And ignore what she wished could be again. It didn't matter. Alexa had died only about a year before; Adam wasn't going to be ready to move on.

"That's possible?"

"We were starting to try once, but he lost himself and I think he's still lookin'."

Paul gave his sister a squeeze and left. Amy opened the French door and stepped out into the cooling evening. "Well, you've met all six of us now and you're still here." Her false smile turned into a genuine grin as he returned her look with a lift of his eyebrow.

"Technically, I'm out here, and they're in there."

"Ah, is that what lets you stay?"

Methos turned his eyes back to the mountain. "So, six of you. Last six half-breeds in the world?"

Amy stepped to his side and watched a scattering of does grazing along the tree line. "As far as we know."

"Are you going to marry one of them? Keep the line going? Obviously not your real brothers. I hope."

Amy frowned, a flash in her eyes, but she checked her temper. "I've already told you once I won't marry for duty."

Methos' shoulders rolled in a casual shrug, but didn't retract the inquiry. She ignored it.

"Is Adam Pierson going to survive here do you think? Sleeping on the ground, cooking on the fire, physical labor all day for three days?"

"What are you talking about?"

Amy allowed herself a small smile at his narrowed eyes. "We are not a charity organization. Guests get to help maintain the property. We ride out in the morning, you and I."

"I -" he sputtered.

"It's my and Peter's turn to work on the fence, but he had a critical surgery come up and you're here, so it's you and me."

"Adam Pierson isn't a physical labor kind of guy!"

"Well, it's good that you're here so you can be Methos, then, isn't it?" Amy answered quickly.

"You don't know -"

Her soft New Orleans drawl interrupted his outburst. "I know enough. I know ya left Paris needin' to sort your head out. And I know ya wouldn't be standing here in the buttcrack boonies of Idaho if you'd managed to work it out. I'll see ya in the kitchen at six thirty. We'll be out for three days before we come back to the house. Pack for it and leave everything else here."

Amy went back inside, Methos stayed on the deck, watching until she left the library. With a grin he turned his back to the house once more.


	4. Where Seldom is Heard

In the morning Methos walked into the kitchen at six, planning on picking at Amy when she walked in at six-thirty. Instead, not just Amy, but her brother Paul and their friend Phillip sat at the table, eating. Methos glowered, Amy grinned, and after he ate and gulped a cup of coffee, they climbed onto their horses a full fifteen minutes earlier than she had threatened the night before. Methos followed Amy out of the stable and up the mountain, she leading a pack mule loaded with tools, food, and bedding.

They travelled a path through the trees, up the mountain, over a ridge, down, up another mountain. Steady walk, harnesses jingling, sounds muffled in the thin fog, Methos wondered what thoughts chased through Amy's head as she rode, but it seemed sacrilegious to break the forrest's quiet by talking so early in the day. His mind eventually began wandering and, after trip down memory lane regarding his last stay in the West, he found himself idly comparing the saddle styles he had used throughout his life. He was idly making a pro/con list comparing the Western saddle in which he sat to the saddles of Europe in the 14th century when he realized the horses had stopped and he had no memory of the last twenty minutes.

"You want me to leave you two alone so ya'll can cuddle, or you just avoiding getting started?" Amy smiled up from where she stood next to a pile of fence posts and barbed wire.

On one side the trees stood sentinel on the slope, close, but not claustrophobic. On the other, a smooth valley stretched out at least a mile wide and more than two miles long. Long green grass waved in the breeze, pale mist showed where a creek ran, and on the far end a bull Elk lifted his head and ran, disturbed by their scent drifting by.

Methos swung down, annoyed at being caught daydreaming. "Calculating ride times out of here if I can gallop at least a quarter of the way and which of these two horses is the faster."

"You ever stay in the American West long in a previous life?"

Methos nodded. "For a time."

"Well, I hope you learned to build a decent fence." She handed him one of two post hole diggers she had picked up. "There's a mark every twelve feet starting at this bracing Phillip made."

They worked side by side through the morning, stopping for a short lunch after the sun passed its overhead peak. Sitting beneath pine trees, chewing beef jerky, Methos found it easy, too easy, to forget the 20th century still marched on somewhere out there. It had been almost a hundred years since the last time his muscles had been asked to do this work, but well before lunch his movements had lost their hesitation.

By unspoken agreement, they re-packed the food and began working again. Their coats and extra shirts from the morning ride were gone long ago, giving way to the warmth of the sun and manual labor. Back to the repetitive work, jam the diggers into the ground, pull dirt, seat the posts and then pound them in. Simple, uncomplicated, no alternatives, and no distractions. Blisters formed through their gloves. Methos' healed. Amy's would later. Brows sweated, breeze cooled. Muscle pain arose and was pushed through until it sunk out of consciousness. It would rear its head again in the evening as they sat for supper, but now, as long as work remained to be done, it could be ignored.


	5. A Discouraging Word

Supper waited until the sun dropped behind the mountains, the last rays throwing a golden glow across their campsite from a pass a few miles away. Food was prepared and eaten in silence. They hadn't spoken for well over fourteen hours. It wasn't until they had their sleeping bags unrolled that it felt right to break the monastic quiet. Methos asked, "Why are you out here?"

"You mean why did we build our home out here in nowhere? Away from people and machines? I think you just answered that." Amy smiled at Methos. "Stay quiet for a bit. Listen."

They lay back on their respective sleeping bags, flat on their backs, breathing as little as possible. Just as Methos decided Amy had actually fallen asleep, she spoke again.

"Do you hear it?"

"I hear nocturnal animals. I hear the bugs. What else am I supposed to hear?"

"The earth itself sings here, so when we found this property, we knew this is where we would build our home. I had hoped you could hear it, too, but I was wrong."

"What does the Earth's song sound like?"

"It's life itself and the joy of being alive, it runs through your heart and vibrates your blood. It gives thanks to the Dagda for being Creation. And when I need re-centered, when I can't feel the song humming through me, I find it and myself here."

"Is it that easy?" How often had he been able to find his center after only a few weeks in Tibet? What was different about this time that his search there had only left him frustrated?

After contemplating her answer Amy drawled, "It's become easier. For a time, I'd lost the Earth's song altogether and no matter where I searched or what works I attempted, I couldn't reconnect to it. This isn't where we ultimately belong, but right now this is the only place we're safe _and_ we can feel this energy around us, so for now it's our refuge. I wish you could feel it."

Methos grunted in reply and slid into his sleeping bag. A few feet away he could hear Amy doing the same, and then the rustling and shifting that had him guessing she slid out of her jeans and long sleeved shirt, shoving them to the bottom of her bag where they and her boots would stay warm and snake free. Groundhogs began their barked conversation at the far end of the valley and a bull elk called to his herd. Echoes made the exact direction impossible to guess.

"What are your plans for this valley? Why the fence?"

"We're going to put some cattle here and don't want them wandering too far away. A little guiding by the fence to keep them off the neighbor's land, and there's a box canyon on the other side over there. Small, but it'll make a nice shelter from bad weather and eventually we'll put in a one room cabin."

"An escape from your escape? Makes sense."

Amy laughed, clear and sparkling under the stars. "More like a crash pad so we don't have to ride out here, then all the way back in one day. Are you already recuperated from today?"

"Yes. How are you going to keep going tomorrow?"

"Same as any other time. Believe it or not, my hands are fairly calloused." A large shadow flew past the campfire and a startled squeak came a moment later. "Mr. Owl got his supper. We'd better get our sleep."

Wondering if Immortals were meant to hear the same song Amy claimed she could, Methos drifted to sleep and dreamed of being captain of a prairie dog army, fighting off the invading owl nation.


	6. And the Skies Are Not Cloudy All Day

The chilly morning arrived with dew on the ground, the horses nibbling grass near their rider's heads, and a band of scarlet clouds in the west. Before the sun cast a single ray into the valley, Amy nudged Methos with her boot until he stirred and bleary eyes found her face.

"Front is moving in," she jerked her finger over her shoulder. "We'll camp in the box canyon tonight, whether or not we've reached that point on the fence line. We may be lucky enough for it to not be here until we're settled in, but I wouldn't count on that."

"Are you telling me you elves can't know what the weather is going to do?" He squirmed back into his jeans in the sleeping bag before standing up and pulling his t-shirt over his tousled hair.

Amy shrugged while rolling her bedding and tying it to the pack mule. "None of us have that talent, so we'd better get as much done as we can."

She meant what she said. The previous morning they had at least taken the time to enjoy a warm pot of coffee and a hot breakfast before leaving the house. This morning there was no fire, no warm food, no warm coffee. No warm Methos or Amy. Just two layers each of shirts and gloves, extra shirts and coats kept close at hand. Before seven-thirty the post hole diggers were being slammed into the packed dirt.

"You know, I bet you could blow the holes you need right in the dirt." Methos leaned on his digger and took a drink from his canteen. They had both worked steadily for over two hours and he wanted a few minutes rest.

"Sure," Amy grunted as the jammed the digger down. "Probably."

"So why don't you? Why do you stay out here for three days getting sunburned, frozen, and blistered?"

Amy dropped the small load of dirt next to the forming hole then rested the blades on the ground so she could lean on the handles like a cane. In silence she stared at him, unblinking. Methos took another long pull from his canteen, staring back over the top. Amy arched her eyebrow at him and then looked pointedly at the clouds. He turned, muttering under his breath about snotty teenagers, and returned to the post he had left on the ground. Behind his back, Amy grinned and went back to her work.

The temperature started a steady decline in the late morning - they both put on a third shirt and kept working at a plodding pace. By mid afternoon, the heavy clouds made it as dark as dusk, and the stiff gusts had gone from irritating to impossible. Amy called an end to their work after they finished setting one more post each. They left the diggers in place, tied everything else to the mule, and rode for the box canyon as fast as possible. The wind hit first, bringing a fine mist and a sharp temperature drop of at least ten degrees. Shelter lay only a minute away and they were damp and shivering before they reached it.

Stepping into the draw cut the wind and a significant portion of the drizzle. Going in a hundred feet or so gave them complete shelter from the wind, though not the fine mist that blew in once in a while. A decent overhang let them build a fire safe from rain and where the rock wall would help reflect heat back. Before unsaddling the horses, Methos and Amy both changed into dry shirts and pulled on their dry coats. Almost the only dry thing they had, thanks to the large, protective saddlebags. While he tended to the horses and the mule she built a fire in a stone ring. By the time Methos brought the food and coffee pot, she had a merry blaze going in defiance of the gloom.

"Did you even check the weather before we left?"

"Yes! Just didn't think the temperature drop would be quite this fast. And they reported that it'd be here after tomorrow night. Oops." Amy stood and walked a few feet away, staying close to the rock wall. Methos heard scraping and shuffling, then a small grunt of effort. A moment later, she returned to their small circle of light and dropped a plastic bin down with a clatter, then ignored it while warming her hands. The temperature in the canyon had dropped again as they sat at the fire.

"What's this?"

"The guys - well, Paul and Phillip, really - can't stand multiple nights of cold food, so they sealed up some pans and utensils and brought them out here, even though we don't have a cabin yet. Feel like catching a rabbit? Or are you good with warmed beef jerky?"

"I'll take warmed dried cow for two hundred, Alex."

"Good. I don't skin rabbits when my fingers are this cold. Get me some water from the pool over there."


	7. Where the Air is so Pure

"So. How has the seizure thing been going?" Perhaps they'd covered this ground so long ago, after the past year and a half, it was lost to the fog of memory and Methos didn't have anything better to restart a conversation.

"Huh?"

"The seizures with rainbows and explosions? That thing that landed you in my bed just a couple years ago?" Methos stopped to laugh as Amy choked on nothing and turned bright red. "How has that been going?"

"Ummmm…fixed, I guess. The healing Peter did on me after the bus shrapnel, before I made him stop, apparently rewired whatever had gone wrong in my head because I haven't had so much as a stutter since. And we've all become much more diligent about practicing, so we have better control in general."

"Good."

"Yeah." She stared into the fire and listened to the wind whistle in the entrance to the canyon. "What was Tibet like?"

"Perfect for hiking and usually warmer than we are right now. How did you know?" Methos turned his head in time to catch a flash of surprise - or was that guilt? - on Amy's face. They had each let something slip. He let it go and let her ask another question.

"Do you think you'll go back?"

Methos shrugged his shoulders, feeling the friction of their coat sleeves rubbing on each other. It had been a long time since they had sat so close. He imagined Amy would say it was the magic of the mountain; it was likely the isolation and physical labor, but everything felt…simple. Easy. He could clearly remember the turmoil in his head in Paris, and still in Tibet, but that constant internal roiling was gone, and his spirit had quieted to a babble instead of the yelling he had tried to flee.

"Has Adam Pierson met with a tragic accident?" Amy prodded.

"I'm not done with him yet and he still has a job at the University, but his work is taking him a different direction than the Watchers."

"Well, then." Her eyes ahead, Amy gave a single, sharp nod to the fire. "Well, it's going to be a chilly one tonight. If we're very lucky, we won't wake up with frost on our noses."

"You should quit believing the weather men. Maybe you'll have things better prepared for us next time." Methos smiled, but Amy only grunted and pulled her sleeping bag as close to the fire as she dared, burrowed in, and relaxed into sleep. Methos was slightly disappointed, and not quite ready to sleep. He appreciated what she had done by staying quiet and letting the repetitive digging and pounding free his mind in a way all the time in Tibet had been unable to, but he'd discovered that he missed the constant back and forth their friendship had become - a lifetime ago, it felt like.

He climbed into his own bag on the opposite side of the fire and fell asleep before five minutes had passed.


	8. And the Zephyrs so Free

They were not very lucky.

Morning intruded, as it always does when one is sleeping outside. The lightening sky and birds beginning their songs insisted that the human interlopers join the world surrounding them, whether or not they felt ready to do so. The lightly frozen dew mocked them for daring to sleep outside.

Methos' consciousness lifted through layers of unconsciousness, one sense at a time becoming aware and sending him information about his situation. As he went to sleep, nearly everything had been unavoidably damp, thanks to the blowing mist, and now a fine sheen of frost covered everything. He shivered. It had been a very long time since he'd been forced to sleep on the ground and he was very glad to be an Immortal. The blisters that formed from work healed before they could become painful and the stiffness and headache of sleeping on dirt and rocks in the cold would fade as soon as he began stretching.

Stretching would require moving an obstacle first. The slender arm thrown across his chest and the legs stretched alongside his own hadn't been there when he fell asleep, but he didn't mind. As smoothly as is possible in a sleeping bag, he rolled over to take Alexa in his arms. The rude jolt of finding Amy instead yanked him fully awake and he had to take a moment to bury the grief that reared its head to mar the gentle morning. He was not at the canyon with Alexa. He was in Idaho with Amy. Down in a box canyon with Amy. And it wasn't her fault that in his half-sleeping state he had travelled back to that first night with Alexa. Not her fault. He sat up and frowned down at her. As if she heard the stab of grief and flash of anger before it could be suppressed, Amy opened her eyes.

Tired and startled he snapped, "What are you doing?"

"You seemed to be stuck in a dream or something and I couldn't get you to wake up."

"That hardly explains this." Methos waved his arm in a circle encompassing himself and Amy, half in his bag, half under hers. Now that she said it, he vaguely remembered an unsettling assortment of visions taunting him, trying to drive him back into uncertainty and confusion. But it didn't matter. It couldn't matter. What could she have been thinking?

"Look, you calmed when I touched you, but every time I pulled my hand back, you'd get restless again. It was freezing cold," she pointed at frost on a rock and glared at him for a second. "So I pulled my bag over and tried to wrap up until you stopped. I guess I fell asleep before you completely settled down. Sorry."

Methos shrugged and looked away to hide the guilt. Guilt for forgetting himself.

With a sigh born of hard work and harder ground for a bed, Amy stretched and her legs moving against his in the small space. He found himself leaning down until their mouths met. With a happy sound from the back of her throat, Amy accepted the kiss and deepened it, raising her head, pushing against him, asking for more, unable to get enough. Her eagerness surprised and pleased him. His hand slid down her shoulder, along her side to her waist. Her skin warmed his fingers, the hitch in her breath and a tiny gasp pleased him, and for a brief second life went in reverse: before the hurt, before the pain, back before… Her fingers brushed along his jaw, behind his ear and around his neck. Amy tangled her fingers into a handful of hair and pulled his head down, just as Alexa had done in -

Methos quashed the unbidden memory as fast as it had intruded.

Under his weight, Amy froze. A moment's hesitation every bit as painful as being doused in ice water.

She put a hand on his chest and pushed, gently but insistently, turning her head away, the strangest look on her face. "Adam, I -"

He tried to turn her face back to him, but she pulled his hand off her cheek and held it for a brief moment before deliberately putting it down on the ground. "I don't want to replace Alexa, I don't want to _be_ Alexa, Adam. I can't. I won't pretend to try."

"I'm not asking you to."

She tried to smile, but only managed something more akin to a grimace. "When you can kiss me…" Her voice trailed off and her eyes darted away, suddenly uncertain. "When you can kiss me…and remember who you are kissing, I…I… Well... It doesn't matter." She slipped away from him, out of the bag, to grab a few clean things from her packs and hide behind an outcropping to change her clothes.

Still guilty. Methos still cherished his memories of Alexa, holding them close in his heart. But Amy…he shook his head at himself and slid out of his sleeping bag. By the time Amy reemerged just a couple minutes later, Methos was dressed and rolling up his sleeping bag. He politely ignored her reddened eyes and concentrated on keeping his thoughts to himself. And realized he had no idea how one was supposed to go about doing that. He studied her face - carefully as blank as a marble statue - while she fed sticks to the fire before pulling out a coffee pot and coffee. Old, habitual walls had been thrown up and it was his fault.

"Does stopping early yesterday mean we stay out another day?" He asked while unwrapping their breakfast.

"We'll work till lunch and then head back in, no matter how far we make it. Or don't."

Breakfast moved at a steady pace, both wanting to get on and get the work done, but neither willing to give up the chance for warm coffee in the frosty night. Thankfully, the front had brought a fast moving, temporary weather change. The cold was bearable with the wind gone and the clear sky blazed with sunlight. Soon, the valley would be warm enough they could shed their coats and work in shirtsleeves again. Mountains. Typical.


	9. I Would Not Exchange My Home

"You hungry?"

Methos turned around to see Amy standing next to the loaded pack mule, dramatically checking her watch with a grin. He grinned back after tamping the ground down with a final pound. "Trying to say something, or ready to admit you can't keep up with me?"

"It's two o'clock. And I'm pretty sure you can starve to death, though I doubt that would actually happen soon. Back to the canyon for lunch, then a little side trip on the way back to the house."

"A what?"

"You'll see."

Amy waited for Methos to tie his tools to the pack mule before nudging her horse and the trailing mule into a slow jog before the Immortal had swung up on to his own mount.

Methos had no trouble catching up and they settled in for a side by side ride. "Now, what is this side trip of yours?"

They guided their horses on a gentle walk out of the valley, down the side of the mountain, once more going through trees, following a deer path until it intersected with a wide, quiet stream. They left the worn path and road along the banks.

"Our reward for a job well done."

"But we didn't finish the job."

"True, but we can hardly be faulted for weathermen not anticipating the speed of a front, right? So. We get our reward for hard work completed."

"You are reaching for justification."

"Well, sure! Just wait until you see what else I've found out here!"

They stayed on the bank of the wide stream as it wound down the mountain, making a path through trees and around rocks until it vanished with a gurgle and a splash over a rock shelf. Skirting around small brace of Aspens let them pass around the edge of the shelf, following a gentle slope down about ten feet to the pool below. Plants flourished on the edge, leaves dipping into the water and a light mist hovered across the surface.

"Congratulations, you have water on your property."

"Oh pffft on you." Amy slid off her mount and tied him to a tree, ignoring the Immortal with her nose in the air.

Methos followed her lead, smiling to himself while tying his horse and the mule to a different tree. Then - still without a word - Amy pulled her shirt off and his jaw dropped. Until, as her jeans dropped to the ground, he realized she'd put a swimsuit on under her clothes. She jumped into the pool of water with as big a splash as a hundred pound female could make. When she resurfaced Amy called to him, "It's not going to get any better!"

"Some of us weren't warned to pack swim trunks!"

"There's a pair of shorts in your saddlebag. If you haven't seen 'em in three days, you may need to consider getting glasses." With a deep breath, she disappeared under the surface, leaving Methos alone to dig for the trunks. He allowed himself a smile, glad to know her impulsive nature had survived the past couple years after all and seemed to be making a comeback.

* * *

The warm water cradled Methos as he floated on his back, a natural sensory deprivation chamber except for the occasional cry from area hawks and falcons as they carried on conversations with their own kind. Amy lounged somewhere in the water also, most likely where the cold waterfall met the hot spring and sent up a cloud of steam more satisfying than any city-locked sauna could provide. Peace. Here, now, floating with his arms and legs spread eagle and his ears under the surface, he could almost believe Amy could hear the earth sing. He could almost imagine hearing it himself.

In the end, whether or not he believed or not, whether he could hear the earth-song or not didn't matter. What mattered was that his head was quiet, settled. Somewhere in the three days of work and sweat and freezing and now bathing, somewhere, Methos had re-centered at last. But being centered also meant he now must make a choice. Where to go, what life to return to, and in what name. In the space of three days, that no longer seemed an impossible choice.

Methos' head bumped into something unyielding and a muffled exclamation reached his ears through the water. Methos opened his eyes and lazily focused them on Amy, rubbing her head and trying to glare down from where she stood, and doing a poor job of hiding a smile.

"All this water to ourselves and we crash? Really?" Methos closed his eyes, making a show of ignoring her. "You're quiet. Your head is quiet."

"Excuse me?"

Amy sunk up to her chin in the water and glanced away. "I mean you're more relaxed than when you got here. You even carried yourself tense." She turned and moved towards the waterfall, a particularly guilty set to her shoulders.

Methos didn't necessarily want to admit this was possible, but with everything else, why would it be so hard to believe? He grabbed her elbow and pulled Amy back to his side, making her stand up in the water. "You're telepathic now, aren't you?"

"Huh?"

"You are!"

"Yeah." She found something fascinating on the surface of the water to study. "No more 'seizures,' but now I'm telepathic."

"Temporary?"

"It's not like we have Elf specialists to go to. Most of what we know, we've managed to figure out for ourselves." Amy shrugged, but Methos saw the shadow flit across her face.

"You don't like it, do you? Your new trick."

"The guys and I have always carried this general awareness of each other, of their well-being, or not. If we wish, we can easily communicate. It's natural, normal. With others, it's….it's disturbing. And it's been hard to shield against, sometimes, lately. With some people."

"Some people. Like me."

"It's hardest to block you," she whispered.

"Because we -"

"I don't know." Amy hurried to interrupt and pulled away. "I don't have anyone to ask anymore."

"Amy -"

"Time to head back. We're late for supper." She stepped up to a stone on the bank, sending water streaming down her back and legs.

Methos sighed and watched Amy wring the water out of her shoulder length hair and fight her jeans on over her swimsuit. After she moved away from the bank to put on socks and boots, he stepped out of the warm spring and into the cool air. So many months ago, before Tibet, before Joe had been shot, they had seemed to get past the hurts they caused each other. Methos had thought that they - she - was ready to try again. Perhaps he'd only been fooling himself.


	10. For All the Cities so Bright

"Did you find what you were looking for yet?" Paul idly wandered into the kitchen early the next morning and found Methos already sitting at the table, staring out at the mountains. He poured a cup of coffee and joined Methos.

"Possibly."

"Good." Paul took a swallow, staring out the large windows, not at Methos. "I don't think I ever thanked you for providing sanctuary when we needed it."

"I was thanked."

"But I did not give you my personal thanks, and that was rude. Thank you. I hope you were able to find our ranch a small piece of sanctuary for yourself?"

"I found it…calming."

Paul grinned across the table. "That is the same word my sister uses."

"I what?" Amy didn't exactly stagger into the kitchen, but her owlish blinking and shuffling steps almost set Methos to laughing. Nearly two hours after her usual time to rise, and she had just staggered down from her room, still in flannel pants and a t-shirt.

"You like it here." Methos snickered into his coffee.

"And, Mr. Smarty Pants?"

"You are not exactly the early bird at your home, it seems."

Paul snorted in his cup, the sound echoing at the table. Methos bit down on a laugh.

"Some of us don't have the advantage of instant healing and may take a day to recuperate." Amy snipped back while pouring milk into her coffee.

"Hey, Sis," Paul interjected before Methos had finished drawing in a breath to respond. "You had a few messages come in while you were out. Nothing so important you had to see it last night, but they're on your desk."

Amy grunted at her brother as she sat down and Methos hid another smile with a rather large swallow of coffee. Paul excused himself rather obviously and left the kitchen.

"I saw your bag by the door." She finally spoke after gulping nearly half her cup.

"Well, I hate to build fence and run…" Amy interrupted with a snort and rolled her eyes. "It seems like the time to go."

"Then it must be so," she said.

"Did the Earth tell you that?"

"Of course not. But just because you can't hear the singing doesn't mean you can't be spoken to. If it feels like it's time to move on, then it is."

They sat in silence for a good twenty minutes, Methos watching Amy from the corner of his eye occasionally. "You are calmer here." He broke the silence.

"I told you, this land is special. I imagine if you ever return, you'll find it easier and faster to calm your mind, too."

He dipped his head in assent and watched a bird flit past the windows.

Household sounds passed as they sat together, quiet and unmoving. On occasion one of the others passed through the kitchen and eventually even Peter came through, surgery over, patient healed, he on his way to collapse in bed. At last, Methos rose and put his cup in the sink. He had a lot of miles to put under his boots.

"Give me a second to get real clothes on and I'll walk you to the gate."

"What if I'm in too much of a hurry?"

"You have an appointment somewhere this morning? Just let me get some jeans on." Amy smiled and hurried up to her room.

* * *

Leaves and twigs crunched underfoot, percussion for the birds singing overhead as they walked side by side to the gate almost two miles away.

"Straight back to Paris?" Amy asked as she opened the padlock and unwrapped the chains.

"I don't know. I guess I'll decide while I walk. Maybe I'll find some other group of half-breeds creating a compound out in the middle of the mountains. I'll make sure you can find each other and increase the size of your little commune."

Amy laughed and pushed the gate open. "Good luck with that. Remember, sometimes an electrical storm really is just that."

"Maybe."

"Just be sure to duck when you cross one, huh?"

They stood in the opening for an awkward moment before Methos stepped forward, leaning down. Amy slipped away from his hand and forced a jaunty smile, her chin up, and shoved her hands into her pockets. "Will I see you in Paris?"

"Eventually. Paris."

An exchange of real smiles, and he stepped through the gate. Amy locked it behind him and watched until he disappeared through the trees.


End file.
